378 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 137 



continue this operation until all that they have collected are bucanned. Then 

 they put them in jars or in sacks which they hang from a nail after their 

 return to their village, taking care to place them in a dry spot, and one not 

 exposed to the heat. Seeing these oysters in this condition one would take them 

 for the common beans on which are fed the crews of our vessels. When they 

 wish to serve them, they begin by putting them to soak in fresh water for an 

 hour. Afterwards the water is changed and they are cooked. After that, 

 whether one eats them as sauce with chickens, fried, or as dough made into 

 fritters, they are equally good and never smell of the smoke. During a long 

 time I saw the Sieur de la Garde, director of the concession of M. de Chaumont, 

 established on the river of the Paskagoulas, lay in a great supply of these 

 oysters thus prepared. He bought them from the savages, and served them to 

 his friends as a luxury. (Dumont, 1753, vol. 2, pp. 273-276.) 



The savages living on the upper part of the river (Mississippi), and in dis- 

 tricts far from the sea, not having the good fortune to be supplied with oystery, 

 make use of the very same method to keep carps, which they do for a very 

 long time. There is only this difference that the grill they use in bucanning 

 this fish is raised only one foot above the earth. I saw this secret method 

 employed by the Natchez where the carps caught are very fine and very fat. 

 (Dumont, 1753, vol. 2, p. 276.) 



Dumont further suggests that the Louisiana French might have 

 adopted their own procedure in drying grapes, at least in part, from 

 the Indians. From the early writers I have only one or two very 

 general references to the drying of grapes, but if Speck's Yuchi in- 

 formants who supplied the following notes regarding the preserva- 

 tion of food reproduced truly aboriginal customs, Dumont may be 

 correct : 



When large hauls of fish were made, by using vegetable poison in streams 

 in the manner described, or more game was taken than was needed for imme- 

 diate use, it is said that the surplus flesh was artificially dried over a slow 

 smoky fire or in the sun, so that it could be laid away against the future. 

 Crawfish, tcatsd, were very much liked and quantities of them were also treated 

 for preservation in the above manner. 



Wild fruits and nuts in their proper seasons added variety to the compara- 

 tively well supplied larder of the natives. Berries, ydhd' , were gathered and 

 dried to be mixed with flour or eaten alone. Wild grapes, ca, were abundant. 

 The Indians are said to have preserved them for use out of season by drying 

 them on frames over a bed of embers until they were like raisins, in condition 

 to be stored away in baskets. ( Speck, 1909, p. 45. ) 



Native storehouses were used, not only for storing corn, beans, 

 pumpkins, and dried fruits and meats, but for less ephemeral kinds 

 of property, and the great storehouses of Powhatan at Orapaks and 

 of the Lady of Cofitachequi on the Savannah were assembled about 

 temples, presumably in order that fear of sacrilege might be added 

 to more external kinds of protection. Our first description of one of 

 these buildings is by the Ficlalgo of Elvas : 



They have barbacoas in which they keep their maize. These are houses 

 raised up on four posts, timbered like a loft, and the floor of canes. (Robert- 

 son, 1933, p. 75; Bourne, 1904, vol. 1, p. 53.) 



